Toronto bakery owner shares health scare behind major business change

While Toronto isn’t short on decadent desserts, one bakery–a pandemic success story, no less–has stood out for offering diners a range of super-soft, ultra-chewy cookies with rotating global flavours.

But running three bakeries, two of which served as production facilities, and hitting multiple markets to outrun slim margins in a city where costs are sky-high, almost sidelined a passionate home baker turned entrepreneur. 

“I was on my way to a market in Markham when, heading out the door of the house, I started to feel cold sweats and numbness on my left side,” Mitchell Cabrera, who co-owns The Night Baker with his wife, Leanne Cabrera, told YourCityWithIN. 

“Since the market was going to open in an hour, it was already too late, so I thought, ‘let’s push through.’” 

Pushing through wasn’t something Cabrera did just that day.

Working 14- to 16-hour days had become routine for him, driving from the bakery’s first location on College Street in the city’s west end to its other locations on the Danforth and in North York. On top of braving cross-town traffic every day, he, a new father with a three-year-old son, also signed up for food and farmers’ markets across the city and the GTA, preparing goods for up to four events per month in the summer. 

When sharing his experience with the bakery’s customers on social media, he described the stress as his “body giving in.” 

But while Cabrera is honest about the toll the work took on him (and why he and Leanne Cabrera decided to sell their west-end bakery), he’s careful to say the couple’s journey from passionate home bakers to successful business owners has been profoundly exhilarating. 

Mitchell and Leanne Cabrera at Taste of the Danforth in 2023; photo courtesy of The Night Baker

The transition from STEM careers to the kitchen came somewhat easily for the ambitious couple. Both Mitchell and Leanne Cabrera have chemistry backgrounds and were naturally drawn to conducting tastier experiments in their own kitchen, trying their hands at cakes and cookies in their spare time in 2017. 

“Me and Leanne have been home bakers for so long and we didn’t think it would take over our lives so much,” he says.  

“I’ve been baking for a very long time and it’s something I used to do to de-stress. I’d bake cinnamon buns, cakes, cookies, just something to do after work.”

After the couple married, they decided to try selling their products at a market and the response, Cabrera says, was astounding. 

“We joined a pop-up market and sold our cookies for the very first time, having never sold anything before, and the reception was so overwhelmingly good that we sold everything in two hours,” he says. 

After that, the Cabreras started selling baked goods at various events, bringing cookies to shoppers in Leslieville, Withrow Park and the farmers’ market at the Royal Bank Plaza. 

“We kept selling out every day around 2 p.m., so we thought, ‘maybe this is something,’ and we looked around for a bakery and we found one. We quit our jobs and went for it.” 

The Cabreras opened their first bakery at College and Ossington in 2019 and the shop quickly earned accolades for its takes on baked goods infused with Filipino flavours. While the pair couldn’t have known a pandemic was set to turn the city, and the world, on its head for the better part of two years, 2020 didn’t prove as disastrous for the growing brand as it was for other culinary counterparts.

“For the pandemic, a lot of businesses struggled but we were well positioned at that time because we’d already automated our online orders, established our deliveries and were on Uber Eats,” he says, adding that since the bakery has a takeout model, it was also allowed to remain open. 

“Our sales at times tripled or even quadrupled. Having cookies was a way to feel good even though the world outside was not so good. We could share that happiness with people.” 

With sales climbing steadily, the pair opened a new location and production facility on the Danforth and, in 2024, opened another shop in the north end of the city. After opening the North York location, they began planning to close their flagship store, especially since producing dough at both the west- and east-end locations was complex. 

Leanne Cabrera

“All of our equipment was at the College Street location and it was getting difficult to manage because we were making cookies at both, which wasn’t ideal,” he says.

That said, pulling the plug on the first shop was hard to justify when the numbers were in the black. 

Still, the travelling between three shops took its toll, especially once Leanne gave birth to their son in 2023. 

“Last year, our bakery felt the strain of hyperinflation and even though we were still selling the same amounts of cookies, our margins got really small. We thought, ‘okay, maybe we just needed to sell more,’ so we went from two pop-ups a month to three or four, and two a month was already a strain.”  

After feeling his body give out moments before heading to the market in Markham, Cabrera knew he had to prioritize his health. 

“It was kind of a wake-up call; my doctor said it was too much,” he says, adding that he spent the next day lying in bed for eight hours. 

In July, the couple officially sold their original College Street shop. They also scaled back the relentless pop-up schedule to breathe, recover, and connect with their young son. 

“Our maximum is once a month during the year and twice a month during the summer. I didn’t have a day off for six weeks straight. One of the most saddening things and painful parts of all of this was not being around [my son] as much; it’s such a precious and beautiful time in his life and he wants us to be around him. It puts things into perspective pretty much,” he says.  

“To me, seeing him run to the door to see me gives me so much energy and so much joy. You want more of that feeling of having that joy with your family, enjoying your child.” 

With a lighter load–Cabrera says with one less bakery and fewer pop-ups, he can be home by 7 p.m. each night–the couple is able to sell their signature Ooh Bae (ube), chocolate chunk, coco pandan and other cookies to customers, while also experimenting with cakes and other offerings. 

And despite baking being a full-time job, he says he still enjoys whipping up something at home. 

“We still bake at home. It still is a de-stressing activity for me because there’s no time pressure; I just make for myself and to share with other people. The joy is making something you think is good and seeing other people enjoy it. To have that and pay my mortgage, that’s amazing”

All images courtesy of The Night Baker